


Fear No (Very) Evil

by AndeliaMaddock



Series: Rigging the Odds [5]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Abuse, Bondage, Dissociation, Forced Slavery, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, Mentions of Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slavery, Violence, beatings, im sorry, intense mental and physical trauma, mental manipulation, vulpes is a real shithead ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 10:37:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10683567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndeliaMaddock/pseuds/AndeliaMaddock
Summary: He's not a wall, something to be knocked down. No matter how the NCR wants their soldiers to be that way, Knight has learned from his past.He's a willow. Strong, but flexible.He has something Vulpes wants, but he won't give it away too easily.





	Fear No (Very) Evil

**Author's Note:**

> A brief intermission, what's going on with Knight, while Benny and the Courier look for him.
> 
> If you haven't read the other stories, context is, Knight had a night with Benny, and accidentally acquired the Platinum chip, kept it as a memento, and got captured. That's all the context truly needed to enjoy this as a stand alone story, though the series adds more depth.

His head ached, and he couldn't see beyond a blackness. A brief worry of blindness was overtaken with the dim realization that there was something thick on his face. It felt damp, likely material coated with sweat from the desert heat. "What the Hell?" He lifted up from against the dirt, tried to sit up.

A hand held him at the shoulder, and he stilled.

"Oh, good. You're awake. And here, I had worried my men had hit you too hard. You NCR aren't made of very tough stuff, for the most part." The voice carried itself in an almost pleasant, melodic way.

But the words twisted around Knight, made him feel a pit drop in his stomach. He took stock blindly of his body. Arms, twisted backwards and bound tightly at the wrists and elbows, held as straight as he could, against his will. Knees, bent and hard against rocky ground. Coolness clung to his cheeks, so he guessed it was night, or they were in shade.

"I can all but see the thoughts trying to form in your head. The way you purse those lips together in concentration is almost adorable." The tone held more of a cutting mocking edge here, and whoever it was crouched down closer to their face. "Would you mind if I painted you a picture? You're in the middle of Legion territory. Miles and miles from anyone who would care if I splattered the desert with your blood. In fact," the words were almost whispered here, breath caught at Knight's ear, "they would delight ever so much if that's what I did. And I would, normally. It's good for my men to see what happens to profligates like you."

He'd known it was Legion, before he'd been told. Fiends wouldn't have toyed with him in quite the same way, they wouldn't even be able to string sentences together without curses. Plus, they wouldn't been found as far along the trail as Knight had made it. Great Khans would likely just shoot him dead, or hold him hostage without saying much. But even being right was no consolation, when it meant everything was absolutely wrong.

"Oh, I love that sight. There are few true pleasures in this wretched world, but to watch fear blossom forth, before I've even raised a finger, is one of them." A hand reached out. Soft, it pet through his hair.

He jerked back, and found himself overcompensating away, until he fell down, right on top of his awkwardly positioned arms. A crack, and a scream. It felt like it was out of socket, nothing he hadn't had before, but he'd never been more distressed by it. How weak he was. Vulnerable. Rolling on his back like a bizarre desert tortoise.

"How amusing. Your papers indicate you're a Major, and yet a simple touch has you fleeing. And hurting yourself. Let that be a lesson for you, hmm? Or should I offer my own additionally?"

Arms, they worked at him, rolled him, shoved him down onto his face in the dirt. Just like he'd woken, but with double the pain.

There were too many arms to have been just his captor maneuvering him. And there was the sound of feet, padding in the dirt, and rocks shifting and crunching beneath solid weight. He was surrounded.

"Like I was saying," the only voice he'd heard continued, as though his pain was nothing more than the cry of a spoiled child, "I would normally just use you as a way to hone my men's ability to teach. Lessons. Lessons this world needs taught. Lessons the NCR needs to know. But then I found something quite peculiar on you. Do you care to take a guess what that is?"

He wanted to fire back, something sassy. Ghost would. Hell, Ranger Jackson would. But he swallowed, and found that swallow turned into a dry gulp. He felt shame flush up in his features, hot and red, despite the chill that surrounded him. Mentally, he took an inventory. Passport into New Vegas. Assorted unimportant paperwork he'd intended to return to Jackson. Some caps, some NCR bills. Nothing pulled to mind, and he didn't have anything interesting about his body, that he knew of. No odd birthmarks, no tattoos. Maybe it was the fancy suit he'd bought? But that was tucked away in his bag, and had no meaning beyond being worth a lot more caps than most would be willing to pay.

"Oh, bother. And here I thought you'd know the significance of the thing I found. That dumb look on your face tells me I'm wrong. Still." A hand grasped the back of his neck, and applied just enough pressure for it to be excruciating. "I should really find out how you got this item, shouldn't I?"

"I don't know--" More pressure, and he panted and tried to regain some purchase from under the hold. But with pained, tied arms behind him, and legs that had no real chance of moving much from his position, it mostly amounted to pathetic wriggles. He knew it, and he felt another wash of shame cover him. "I won't tell you anything."

"Oh, that pretty face of yours has told me more than enough. You don't even know the levels of conversation you've been having with nothing more than your facial muscles, do you? And seeing your suit, I have to wonder if you were in New Vegas. Yes, I can see you were. I hope you didn't try your hand at the tables. Your bluff is abhorrent. You'd never make it as a frumentarii."

Oh God.

Moments passed, and those words seemed to echo in Knight's brain, even though there was a silence around him. It hung, it clung to his skin. Frumentarii. The spies. Maybe he'd been right, maybe they'd been waiting for him in the Tops and. No. He blinked behind the material that sopped the sweat on his brow. This one had just figured out he'd been in New Vegas. If he could believe that they'd figured it out and not just know it, at least. And if it were true, then they hadn't been there. It was happenstance they'd caught him on his way to the Outpost.

Happenstance. Bad luck. His luck had to run out sometime, didn't it? Maybe this was divine retribution for the farce he'd been playing at. For trying to be someone important.

That voice began again. "So much energy, just to rub together a few thoughts, no doubt. Yet, you don't even seem to make a spark." Fingers played at a spot on the back of Knight's head. The cruel pressure removed itself, and became almost gentle.

It hurt, dimly at first, after the sharp pain it had been just moments prior. Then he realized he felt stickiness there, and a dull pain twisted like cold steel, and became throbbing and fresh. That was how they'd knocked him out, wasn't it? He'd heard footsteps, before the blackness.

"So, you received this in New Vegas, no doubt. This chip?"

The chip? The memento? Knight grunted, and willed himself not to scramble or wriggle in the dirt. He wasn't a worm, even if this Legion dog thought it of him. "I'm not saying."

"Oh, please." A laugh, mocking and tight. "As if I can't read it so plainly on your face. Even though the dirt obscures it a bit. You should keep your lips from shifting so much when you're not even speaking."

He wouldn't point them towards the Tops. If it didn't have that name etched into it like some of the chips, then he wouldn't mention it. He wouldn't. Never.

Knight knew, of course, how long promises of 'never' held out under torture from the Legion. If fear blanketed him, made the darkness he could see cling a bit tighter to his consciousness, he couldn't help that.

He wasn't a coward. He'd fought, and he'd killed, Legion men. But this? This was different. This was capture. He'd heard rumors some NCR had taken to pulling the same tricks the Legion did when faced with capture, albeit for different reasons.

Would he have done that? Would he have had the guts, or the cowardice, to pull his own trigger if faced with a potentially worse end?

Rangers were taught to shoot NCR who'd been captured. 'Mercy killings', they'd called it. He'd balked at it, when Jackson had drunkenly whispered about what he'd had to do, more than once. But now, he reasoned, maybe they had a point.

Whoever this Legion frumentarii was, he seemed like he'd keep Knight around until he was useful.

Knight didn't want to be useful again in his life, if it meant he wasn't useful to the Legion.

"I wonder what you're getting up to in that little head of yours. You know, captives at this stage are at one of my favorite spots. You consider running. You consider suicide by Legion. You consider so many options. But do you know what option you will inevitably find yourself at?"

He wouldn't reply. He felt his lips curl into a scowl. Knight aimed his face as best as he could at the voice's dark whereabouts.

"Acceptance. The only real route. Acceptance that your life isn't yours. That you will live, and you will die, according to what the Legion decides. It's not really a choice, but so many of you struggle to make it regardless." There was an almost tenderness to the touch now, fingers cupped his chin and stroked along the stubble. "I have good feelings about you though. You seem more malleable than most of those of your rank."

"Fuck you."

"Oh, I don't doubt that may be the case soon enough. The Legion doesn't look entirely kindly on that sort of thing, but I have free reign in my affairs, so long as I further the cause of My Lord."

Someone important, then. A higher ranking frumentarii. Most, he'd been told, were under tight orders from Caesar, sent on specific meetings. Only one or two, as rumors went, were given the ability to meander, snaking their way through the desert and choking off any points of life they decided to.

Oh. And if he thought his stomach had found the deepest pit it could, it twisted and fell further. Vulpes Inculta. Described by all reports as intense. Haughty. Calm, yet sadistic. And above all, described as a right hand man to Caesar. Someone who could do as they please, who had.

The opposite to, but no less frightening than, the veteran rangers of the NCR.

He tossed the last words this man, this frumentarii, said around for another moment. He didn't doubt that may happen. Oh.

He thrashed against his bonds, and scowled towards the laughter that slapped his consciousness.

"It took you nearly a minute to realize my intent. How charming. But I tire of your motions. Men, put him to bed, won't you?"

He didn't notice the transition between the darkness of consciousness, and the darkness of forced slumber. He didn't have time to really consider it.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Knight hadn't ever been religious. Not since his Mother's passing, not since long before even, though he'd tried to please her. Life had a way of twisting you, and making you either double down on your faith, or crumble it away entirely into the dust of the desert. He'd fallen into the second category.

But that verse worked its way into his mind, slithered in under the sliver of a gap between the blindfold that let him see. And what he saw was light, so much light. How it glinted off dozens of Legion dogs, the metal plates of their armor bright in the sunlight.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

She'd clutched a bible, worn from its centuries of abandonment by the world, missing pages and a wearing a torn cover. She'd said those words.

Knight didn't shut his eyes. He watched. He waited. He listened. And though fear kept on threatening to bludgeon him like a Legion soldier, he doubled down in his resolve. If she could face her death with courage, she'd want him to do the same. Even if that death came as slow as hers had.

"Don't bother pretending to be asleep." That same voice, though it seemed more bored than before, called out from just beside him. "As I've said before, you're atrocious at hiding anything." A boot nudged at him, right along the ribs.

Knight took stock of himself, once again. Arms bound in chains this time, and in front of him. He lay on his back, able to see the soldiers move about their daily business readily enough, just between the cloth and his upper cheeks. His single window into the visual world.

This had to be a bigger camp. There was too much movement for it to be some nothing operation that prodded at the NCR territory with sharp sticks, like some of the camps he'd heard of.

"How bothersome." The boot lifted, and stomped down on his chest. "I'd hoped you'd cease pretending when I pointed out the futility. I suppose a lesson must be taught."

Lessons didn't sound all that great, given the circumstances. He grunted, and attempted to roll his way onto his belly. To his surprise, the boot lifted enough to let him.

A moment later, that same boot crunched down on his spine. "Go ahead. Crawl in the mud, like the snake you are." The toes seemed to push a bit harder, angle their way between two portions of his bones.

He tried not to howl. Tried not to let it affect him so much. Be strong, they said in training, don't let the Legion see you cry. It would help you survive. But those were lies, no different in tone and effectiveness to the pre-War school posters of turtles under desks. Just duck and cover. It'd all be over soon.

Maybe for the children who didn't get 'lucky' and get into a Vault, it was over soon. But he was under no illusions this would go fast.

We won't go quietly, the Legion can count on that.

By the time the punishment seemed to end, his throat worked its way to being hoarse from his grunts and growls of pain, all he would allow after that first shocked scream. He couldn't find purchase, even as dirt dug under his fingernails and his bared feet curled and clutched at the pebbles beneath him.

"So loud. I'd barely even done anything. But still, not as loud as I had hoped." The Legion soldier, no doubt Vulpes to Knight's mind, seemed almost chastising in tone. Once more, a hand stroked at Knight's head. "Are you willing to work with me now? Or shall I show my men how strong your voice can be?"

"Rot in Hell."

"Oh. And here, I thought it was just your Rangers who held onto such stubborn notions. Most men in your ranking, and certainly all your females, would have broken. NCR doesn't teach its basic stock how to be resolute. I can almost respect that you are, despite it."

This was what they did, wasn't it? Toy with minds, roll back and forth, pleasure and punishment. Insults, and admissions of admiration. One Ranger, she came home after being freed from a slave camp. She had to go all the way back to the NCR, her head was so twisted around. Whispers carried on the rumor wind that she'd put a bullet through her head, secured herself as a Legion kill, a full year after first capture.

"Not a talkative one, are you? Maybe I should see it as a blessing. I'll teach you to only speak when asked to speak. And you'll learn the only important things in your head, are what we put in there."

He'd sooner die.

"A smile? Interesting."

Knight hadn't even begun his day, really, and he felt it pulled right back from him, with a brief hit at the back of the head.

His stomach hurt more than his head when he felt awareness slide back. Time had little meaning, when he couldn't see any light. Either the blindfold had been readjusted, or it was dark once more, with little but stars and a moon to light the way.

He heard the fluttering of canvas, and considered that he might be in a tent. The wind didn't seem to affect him, despite the noise around him.

So many people. He could hear quiet murmurs, voices that sounded. Some bolder than others, they rose over subdued words. There was a sharp cry in the distance, and a slick sound, like steel through flesh.

He couldn't hold back the wince.

"Ah, you're awake. Good."

This was how they'd cycle through, wasn't it? He nodded numbly.

"I had thought to leave you with Lucius, but it turns out," a beat, evident distaste, "he's too busy. So it seems you fall onto me. A fitting side project, while I line other things up."

"Oh, I can't wait." He considered how he felt. Hungry. Scared, but stubborn. He'd dreamed, even in a forced unconsciousness. Black shadows had rolled over him, but he heard voices he'd gone without for years. A resolve filled him, despite it all. Because of it all.

He can't hear a smirk. But Knight was almost certain if it were possible, he would.

He wondered briefly what that face even looked like. Was it really like the overdone posters showed? Was this even Vulpes? Did he really wear a dog over his head, like some backwards show of strength?

In a few quick movements, Vulpes, if that was him, was just beside Knight. A hand reached out, once more, and pat through that hair. "I take pride in my work, though, I must admit. I'm not quite the same as Lucius is in what he does. Where he's a hammer, I tend to be more precise."

"The scalpel, then?" He almost doesn't say it. It's like asking for an actual scalpel to peel back layers of his skin. Worse, to peel back layers of his mind, further down than even that singular session with a therapist went. It's like asking to be crucified, to beg for it. It's so many things, but he doesn't bite it back. He lets it wander out.

"Exactly. Or, perhaps the paintbrush, in some cases. I've always fancied myself more of an artist than some of my brothers. Strokes, in all the right places, to get the picture I desire. I paint the Mojave with blood, and glory, all for My Lord's honor. For his righteousness. For his strength."

There was stark sincerity in those words. Propaganda that was absorbed fully, embraced with bloody care. NCR soldiers could join, and leave, right at the cut of their contract. They didn't have to fight forever. These ones, they didn't have a choice. Dissenters died, painful, and the rest called it glorious.

"Usually, this is where I'd see anger, in the jutting of a jaw." He clasped theirs. "But you seem almost pensive."

"I still don't even know what you want." But it wasn't entirely true, was it?

"Where did you get that chip? It's unique."

"I got lucky at the tables."

"Oh, yes, lesser Legionaries have let me in that you were recently seen in the Tops."

Poker face, hold a bluff, don't let them know it was true. Don't lead them to Benny.

"So, did you enjoy the services the Chairmen provide? Did you get fatter on their brahmin and enjoy their moral dissolution?"

"I did." If they read everything on his face anyway, he might as well be bold about it. For once in his life, not stutter and stumble through everything.

"I hope you enjoyed yourself. I hope it gave you good memories to hold onto."

It got a bark of a laugh through him. He wouldn't regret that, even if 'punishment' came in the form of a strike, a stab, or a shot. But nothing happened, and he pulled back the laughter.

Blindness really didn't lend itself kindly to Knight, but he really felt he could tell what went over that face. There seemed to be a moment of surprise, to hear a prisoner laugh. The thumb secured that idea, with the way it stilled its strokes on his chin. Then, a beat, and Vulpes tightened his grip, seemed to want to bruise Knight's chin. "What's so amusing?"

Knight turned down the smile a few degrees, and offered a simple explanation. "That chip was the memory. Funny, I thought it was good luck."

The grip loosened a bit, and Vulpes offered his own quiet laugh. As though it were one shared between friends, not bitter enemies of vicious groups. "That holds a certain bitter irony for you, I'm sure."

"I'd say I'm surprised, but really, that's about what I could expect. My one day off in four years, and I get captured the next day." He's a fool, he knows. To talk so freely. To say things before they've been cut from him. NCR would be ashamed of him.

He finds himself floating, a bit, as though he were listening to the conversation from just ten feet above. It's muffled, and it continues without much of his input.

"A tireless worker too? Do you truly believe in your side's cause? That strength should be weakened by the lowest common denominator?"

"Yes. I do. I'd gladly enlist over and over, until we have the Dam, and to protect this area." Did it sound like propaganda to Vulpes, Knight wondered from somewhere else.

"It's so rare to have a conversation, a real conversation, with your sort. It tends to just be begging, and shouts." The words fell out, like someone who pondered over the meaning of a line in a poem. "You're ignorant, of course. Backwards. The Legion will teach you, and all others, what is necessary. I will be the one to teach you, personally, though."

He doesn't even hear his own response. There's cotton in his mind, and sand in his mouth. But it gets a laugh from Vulpes, before there's silence once more. Before there's nothing but darkness and thoughts he can't quite piece together.

He isn't broken. He's barely even been touched. But he doesn't feel quite right. It's all broken, pieces around him he just can't reach to put together again.

Time is little more than a distant concept to him, measured by the pain in his sticky head and the hair plastered back against it. Measured by the howls of his stomach.

He doesn't hear at first, when Vulpes says something. He blinks, despite the cloth in front of his eyes. "Wh-what?"

"I don't like repeating myself. I will, this one time. But see to it that you pay attention when I talk, or you shall find life much less enjoyable."

Because it was a vacation he was on, in the shit tent he was in. He waited though, not sure if he could even say more than a word at a time, with how parched he was.

"Would you like food?" The words were spit out, less gracious, more annoyed.

"I could eat."

"No, no, that's not how this works. You know that. I offer you sustenance. You beg." That boot, familiar enough by then, ground against Knight's stomach, pushed it in deep as it could go. The tip of the toes ground in under the ribs a bit, and brought up an excruciating pain. "Beg."

He'd heard Vulpes liked to go slowly. Sometimes it took months to break a Ranger. Was he so lowly that he wasn't worth taking that time? Was there something so important, potentially, about that chip, that Vulpes rushed it? Turned scalpel strokes into hammer hits, delivered by boot?

Knight let a whimper loose, and felt his lips part to give Vulpes what he wanted. On the surface, at least. "Please. I need to eat. Please feed me." He could almost pretend it was just a game. Almost pretend it was Benny, or Marcus, or any number of men he'd dabbled with in ages gone by. "Sir. Please." A pant. A needy sigh.

"Are you under the sign of the Bear, or are you just a dog? A simple mongrel, seeking the barest comforts?" Vulpes lifted Knight's head up with a tight grip on that short cropped hair. Their breath was hot on his skin. "What would you do for them?"

"I..." Something in him split, somewhere along the way. What did the Doctor call it once? Compartmentalization? He was two parts of the canyon, and he had a feeling he was on the wrong side of it, just then. How long had he been running that sort of game, anyway? He was one thing, he was another. And never shall the two meet.

"Answer me. Or I can make things quite unpleasant."

So who was he, today? Knight leaned into the touch. "I'd do what you ask. Anything." He deserved this, didn't he?

"Good boy." Pared fingers lightly stroked at their cheeks, almost a tender gesture. "I have a bowl of food for you. See to it you don't waste a thing."

He followed where lead, crawled on hands and knees as bid.

Sludge met his tongue, when a boot shoved it down to eat from the bowl. Vaguely meaty, it had a gritty texture.

Who was he, today? Not Major Knight. He wasn't sure just yet, who he'd be. Who he could be. But he wasn't a Major right then. He dipped his tongue down, and pulled the sustenance up.

He barely noticed when it was through, when his tongue met ceramic, and tasted nothing but the thinning glaze.

"Interesting."

He blinked. Eyelashes worked weakly against the blindfold that held tight against his face.

"You are a peculiar man. How do you roll so quickly between acquiescence and defiance? All within the space of a few days, and I've barely even worked on you. Most of this has just been in transit. Perhaps you've been trained before?"

He held still, unsure how to reply. Unwilling to reply.

"Ah. That explains a great deal. Well, whoever did it, didn't manage well enough. I'll have to work you back through the basics."

Would he? Or would he finish it, as soon as he learned whatever it was Vulpes wanted to know about the chip?

Things moved at a lame brahmin's pace. Days rolled into nights, and thoughts rolled away from Knight.

It hardly mattered. Every inch Vulpes got, the Knight retreated further inside, and showed someone else entirely. Someone accepting. Someone who let them take information through punishment, but never enough to give away there was nothing, really, besides a Name.

He'd had an entire lifetime under his Father's rule to learn how to roll over, hadn't he? And to learn how to bite.

Vulpes chuckled, and pressed fingers against Knight's throat, though it didn't hold much threat to it.

He wasn't entirely sure what had been said to bring that on, but it brought him back to the surface for a moment, dimly aware of himself once more.

"You're stubborn, I'll give you that. I know there's importance in this chip. You will tell me what that is. If not the usage, who gave it to you."

"I'm not the one who holds those cards." He teetered on the edge he didn't want to head in. Benny had been so good to him. It wasn't right, basically sending them that way.

"And which one of the Chairmen does? My sources say it's one of them. It must be. You were seen there, all night, nearly."

"It's not even an important thing."

"Don't lie. Maybe you're ignorant to its purpose, but you have the knowledge I seek. Who had it. Who?" Nails clawed into stubble, scraped at the thick skin there, until it burned.

"A man named Pacer." Was it vicious? Yes. Was it a lie? Oh, yes. Did Pacer deserve it, if Knight could pull off the bluff?

"Pacer hmm? And just what would NCR be doing, dealing with one of those men?"

He snorted. This was like playing the tables. When he'd worn that suit, gotten all liquored up, and been so smooth. He would run it. He could. "Damn if I know. It's what got me into this mess."

"I'd like to believe you. I almost do." Hands moved up.

He almost cried, the light was so bright. Blindfold off, for the first time in only Vulpes knew, it blinded worse than the darkness had. It seared sight into him, white and hot.

"Look me in the eyes. I tire of toying with you, and I tire of your little games. Tell me what I need to know."

He panted, tried to regain focus. This was. It was Vulpes, an exact match to the poster, minus only the dog head and goggles. It was. Upsetting. He was almost handsome, aside from the almost desperate look in his eyes.

Desperate. That tone held so stern and in control, but those bright eyes seemed to shine with need.

He kept his resolve, and licked brittle skin on dry lips. "NCR is tired of dealing with the Kings in Freeside. I knew a few of them, from my time before the NCR. Whatever that chip is, Pacer was the one who had it."

Eyes narrowed, seemed to hone in, like the giant eagles that soared far in the West, back home in his territory.

Not that he could call it home, these days.

Vulpes smiled then, and nodded his approval. He pressed a kiss to Knight's forehead. "Finally. Was that truly so difficult? Was it worth all the pain of occasional defiance? I don't see why you'd want to protect someone who I understand to cause such problems for the NCR. Perhaps..."

"I'm not only loyal to NCR. I knew him. We have... history." Luck be a man tonight. With the blindfold off, finally able to see them, he just wanted to keep his winning bluff streak. Vulpes had done him a service, really. He'd named each tell, each facial tic, for days and days.

You bite your lip on a lie. I suppose you've earned this lashing, how sad. Your brow raises the cloth ever so slightly. Unfortunate for you, but I'd been getting bored. That tone tells me otherwise, why do you make punishing you so easy? I'd almost rather be out serving Caesar in other ways, than working with you.

What an arrogant bastard.

But they believed him. Knight could read people on things like this, he had learned young to read moods. To adjust accordingly.

That desperation swirled back into how Knight had imagined he'd looked most of the time. Satisfied. Calm. Vulpes stood above Knight from his position on the ancient mattress. "I suppose I should reward your first real bit of knowledge. You've been useful."

Rewards were an interesting thing. Food? Water? Time to sleep for more than an hour, and not the kind that was 'sleep' after blunt force trauma either.

Vulpes stood, and began to undress.

Oh.

Briefly, he reminded himself of that singular insinuation right at the beginning, when he hadn't figured out how he wanted to navigate this yet. When pain had just been in splotches, and not in vibrant colors across his back and bared chest. Slashes of leather tearing red and swollen across his thighs.

The Legion was more accepting of this sort of thing, he'd told that distant memory of a traveler, back at the Outpost so long ago. He'd learned that wasn't quite true, heard it in whispers, at least.

But Vulpes could do as he pleased, so long as he got the job done, couldn't he?

His own clothing had long since been reduced to simply a strip of fabric, fastened loosely about his groin. Despite it, Vulpes hadn't cast his full attention to Knight's lower body, besides during flogging punishments that dug into his hips, thighs, and the meaty flesh at the back of his calves.

With that glint in his eyes, familiar in a chilling contrast to more caring looks former lovers had given, including Benny, Knight knew.

"Shall I remove your wrist binds?" A question, but was it really?

Knight looked to him, hoped to impart just the right amount of pleading. Days had taken a toll on him, maybe weeks, but a lifetime had helped him finally work out the right way to play.

Maybe Rangers, greater men and women than him, broke. But he'd been broken before, and he didn't care for it. This? This was being a willow, like those he'd seen once, back home, in an old pre-War park. They bent, and bent, but didn't die, despite the blast. Everything around them, turned to dust, rubble, nothing more than a memory buried. But the willows just twisted a bit. Leaves were gone, nothing but thin wispy branches, but still the trees remained.

But it took more than a look to plead, and he knew it from painful experience, from back then, and now. "Please. I want. To touch."

"So very eager. Be warned. If you attempt to strike me, or in any way fight, useful or not, I'll skin you alive, and lead my marches with your head on a stick. A lesson, for all the other profligates to come." A sneer carried those words out, and Vulpes Inculta looked very much exactly as frightening as soldiers had said.

So he wouldn't push back, not physically. Verbally, maybe, a word out of place, here or there. Something to get a flogging, something to get him torn into. Maybe something to get him killed, maybe if he wasn't so good at judging the situation. But he wouldn't physically strike back. Not yet.

Knight did all he could to fill his own blue eyes with acceptance. With agreement. He bet, double or nothing, and nodded. "I won't fight. I don't... I don't want to fight."

One woman, just a caravaneer, just someone who wanted to bring the shambles of her life back together under the family business, had told him how she'd counted every single day while a slave. It drove her mad. She couldn't even count money out anymore, without panicking, reminding herself of things. She had to let her younger sister do the money exchanges, and she just kept alongside the pack brahmin, walking, and walking, letting each day blur and blend into the next, as they walked towards the distant unknown.

That was a trick, not counting the days, yet not being completely unaware of them. Knight knew it well. It's why the NCR loved him. Dutiful Knight, always willing to work. Always willing to take any post, no matter how mind numbing it was.

He smiled, sincerely, up at Vulpes.

The worn wrist binds were undone with practiced ease. A moment later, they knelt between his legs, and casually flicked the cloth aside. Vulpes pressed two fingers, slick with saliva, into Knight's body. There was no ceremony in it. No caution, no soft movements. It was business, mingled with some form of pleasure.

Knight had long learned how to relax his body though, hadn't he? He panted, and shuddered with practiced calming breaths. "Oh." To disconnect the pleasure, from the person who caused it, was something he might have to reckon with later. But for the moment, he allowed it. He got woven into it.

"So tight, yet so giving. Really, that about sums you up. I have to admire how long you kept from having loose lips." Vulpes spit on his own cock, then pressed it right up against Knight's body.

Right in, and this wasn't the time or place Knight wanted someone to just slam right in either, but he'd take it. What choice was there? He shut his eyes, and rocked against the thrust.

"Oh. No, no, no." Stern words, a rough thrust. "Open your eyes. I've given you the gift of sight, so that you may wonder in my glory, in the glory of the Legion. Not so you can wrench them shut like a whore with an unruly customer."

He should have known, really. He opened his eyes, and watched them, watched their young face clenched just a bit in concentration. "I'm sorry, Sir."

"I suppose I'll accept." Irritation smoothed to satisfaction, and Vulpes eased back a bit, then angled his hips forward and drove his length home.

Vulpes was all about finesse and verbal maneuvering normally, but he seemed to concentrate solely on the physical act for this. Pursed lips, sweat on his brow, soft pants through surprisingly soft looking lips.

If it were anyone else, he'd think them strikingly beautiful.

But they were his captor. His rapist. His Master.

He smiled up at them, and carefully, gently, stroked his face like they had to him so many times before.

Vulpes' body stiffened, and he narrowed eyes into suspicious slits.

Knight recoiled, though it was only partially true. Play the part, be good, but be just bad enough. Just nervous enough. Just needy enough.

Vulpes' eyes opened a bit more, and he slowly smiled. "Go ahead. Touch me. Worship me."

Egotistical bastard. Knight offered a shaky smile, and kept those tics, all those goddamn tics Vulpes had picked up on, out of sight. "Y-you're..."

"What have I said about stuttering?"

That it was pathetic. He knew that. He glanced away for a moment, before he flashed his eyes back to them, focused solely on them. "You're handsome. Very handsome."

The thrusts quickened, not unpleasantly. "I am."

Knight nodded, and let out a loose sigh, let it float above them, a happy little murmur. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For. For rewarding me."

"Hmm. After so long of seemingly only doling out punishments, I suppose it was about time you earned a real reward. I'm glad you came around. I don't have to be all cruel, you know."

Another sigh, and he felt his length begin to swell, ready for any attention it might be given, after so long being ignored. Not that he hadn't been used to that, mostly, for years. But at least, before, he was able to get himself off occasionally. Not so here.

Knight eased his expression into one of momentary peace. He carefully, once more, attempted to stroke at them along the hair. Along the face. He shuddered, nervous, a bit tinged with apprehension that he didn't have to fake.

Vulpes smiled, and allowed it. Embraced it, from the pleasured moan he offered in response to a light tug at his thick hair. "Bold, but I knew that. Yet, ever so cautious."

He bit his bottom lip, and smoothed the touches back into gentle pets, strokes. "Is it alright?"

"Such hesitance. If you must carry through on an action, do it with conviction, not with this pathetic mewling and questioning."

He tugged Vulpes into a tight kiss, wrapped his legs eagerly about their waist. Kissed them hard, but remained compliant. He started it, but he didn't deign to lead the kiss.

Vulpes growled approval, and ground hard into Knight's body, pressed roughly against that sweet spot. His tongue slashed through Knight's, took control, demanded full entry. It curled, and seemed pleased with itself shortly after, when it was given just that.

It lit him on fire in a way he almost didn't mind. Knight whimpered, but twisted it around into his own low growl, a needy moan.

And if only half of it was acting, all the less likely he was to be caught and castrated, beheaded, or crucified.

Vulpes pulled back, and casually licked at his own lips, then smirked down at them. "Well? Isn't that better? Taking what you want, and accepting consequences if they come?"

"And will I be punished for it?"

"Maybe." The smirk shifted, and pulled up just a bit, into a smile. "But I'd sooner punish you for something that actually warrants it."

"How did you know I had the chip?"

Vulpes' brows raised nearly a half inch. "Coitus counter interrogation?" A sly expression crinkled around his eyes, and marked those lips to just one side. "Curious. Have I emboldened you too much?"

"If you must punish me, I'll take it." Practiced demure expression, brows up on the insides, down on the out. Lips parted just barely, in a soft 'o'. Cheeks, relaxed, smoothed.

"I will. But perhaps not yet. I didn't know you had the chip. I just saw a lone NCR sheep, lost from the flock. And what kind of fox would I be, if I didn't seek to help you find your way, hmm?"

"How could you even know the chip was useful? I barely did. Pacer... he gave it to me. Didn't tell me anything." He weaved his lie, and tried to keep several steps ahead, tried to keep himself from running into a wall, and giving himself away.

"Seven packages, rumored to be important, paid for with more caps than some see in a lifetime, despite their lack of protection? Did you think us fools? We have eyes everywhere. Ears everywhere. We intercepted three such packages. Platinum parcels, of little more than the value of a pretty rich man's bauble."

He groaned, and arched back up, tried to get them deeper. "If only the NCR had scouts looking into everything like this." Strokes, like to the face, but right on that swollen ego. It'd been a while, and Vulpes seemed to enjoy it.

The Legion spy nodded, and let out an almost regretful sigh, though it mingled with one of pleasure. "Yes. It's a shame. The NCR is weak. Those who aren't strong enough to get out, will perish." Their own eyes fluttered shut.

It occurred to him, almost on an afterthought, that he could have snapped their neck right there. He'd done that once before. Not during sex, no. But he'd had a Legion soldier on him, their eyes blinded by the sand of a storm that raged around them. He'd just, reached up, with hands around their throat. A bit of pressure, a bit of oomph, and he'd twisted them into sleep. Permanently.

Knight smiled, sincerely, and massaged at their shoulders, eased his powerful thumbs and fingers into tense flesh.

Who was he? No one, as Vulpes said. No name, no one. Knight was dead, and slaves didn't get names. Not unless they worked their way into the Legion, fought valiantly on the Legion's side. As a rule, though, Caesar didn't allow that for NCR.

Who was he? Major Knight. And he had a plan.

He crooned, and pulled them in deeper, begged in short whispers for them to take him how they wished. Please.

He kissed Vulpes again, and felt them flood him. An unfamiliar feeling, though, lately he'd felt it more than in several years prior.

He'd gone fishing in Lake Mead once, when stationed nearby. Fish were strange. But they weren't as dumb as people thought, if those people had an opinion on fish at all.

You had to have the right bait, you had to have the right way to pull the line, to draw them closer. You had to be careful how hard you pulled when you reeled them in. Give a little, take a little.

If you were lucky, patient, and skilled, you'd have yourself a nice meal.

And God, but he was hungry.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if anything I described upset anyone with past trauma. I tried to tag well, but I know personally that sometimes it's not enough.
> 
> If you did like it, please send kudos or a comment my way. Thank you!


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